Field
The present disclosure relates to methods, systems and/or apparatuses for providing an electronic signal for the surveillance and/or testing of Geiger-Muller tube based radiation sensors.
Description of Related Art
Government regulations of commercial nuclear power plants require the periodic surveillance of safety equipment installed at, or located within, the nuclear power plant to ensure that the safety equipment is functioning properly. The safety equipment that may need to be surveilled may include sensors for detecting radiation, such as Geiger-Muller (GM) tube-based sensors.
Existing radiation sensors that use GM tubes do not allow for indirect and/or remote operational and/or performance testing of the GM tubes. Instead, GM tube-based sensors must be inspected manually by human personnel by placing a radiation source within the vicinity of the GM tube and analyzing the response of the GM tube-based sensor to the radiation source. This testing method may be undesirable because it exposes human personnel to unnecessary radiation. Further, GM tube-based radiation sensors may be located, permanently or otherwise, in physically inaccessible, inconvenient, and/or physically dangerous to access locations, such as radioactive seam lines in nuclear power plants. In these types of situations, it may be difficult and/or inconvenient to access the radiation sensor in order to test the radiation sensor. Also, conventional testing methods may require additional personnel to complete the testing as the radiation sensor's radiation monitor (e.g., display panel) may be located at a control facility and may not be located at the location of the radiation sensor. Thus, two or more employees may be needed in order to test a single radiation sensor, thereby increasing the testing cost and reducing employee productivity. Additionally, because the surveillance of the radiation sensors is conducted manually, testing of the radiation sensors may only occur on a periodic, instead of continuous, basis. With only periodic testing of radiation sensors, there may be a lengthy delay in the time it takes to repair and/or replace a malfunctioning radiation sensor because the malfunction of the radiation sensor may not be detected immediately.